


Sleeping Habits

by aerynevenstar



Category: Code Geass
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, Heavy Angst, Lelouch is a douche, Lelouch laughs a lot, M/M, Spoilers for Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2, Suzaku is an emotional wreck, Suzaku is not amused, Suzaku is the human incarnation of the lego you just stepped on, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-24 15:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10744173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerynevenstar/pseuds/aerynevenstar
Summary: Lelouch Lamperouge laughs in his sleep.Lelouch vi Britanniascreams.





	1. Laughing

**Author's Note:**

> This story is extremely old. Like, I think I wrote this originally in 2009 or 2010.
> 
> It was taken down from the original post on FFN, and I've had many people beg me to repost it eventually. So...here it is.
> 
> Maybe someday I'll go back and re-write this with my current style. .....I make no promises, though. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> P.S. - I will be posting the remaining chapters throughout the next few days, as time allows.

_"Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at."_  
_Johann Wolfgang von Goethe_

* * *

Lelouch Lamperouge laughs in his sleep.

The first time I saw this, I thought it was at once both amusing and yet...somehow frightening at the same time.

I awoke next to him slowly that first night, still half-immersed in strange dreams filled with masks and the harsh snap of a black cape. Blinking repeatedly in the low moonlight filtering through Lelouch's (ridiculous) silk curtains, I thought I heard an echo of Zero's laughter from my dream.

_Ha ha ha._

My heart sped up slightly in alarm, the mild adrenaline kick forcing me to wake fully. Strangely, I could still hear that odd laughter, although now that I wasn't half-asleep, it no longer sounded quite like Zero's.

It sounded...almost like...

Incredulous, I turned my head to gaze in disbelief at the raven-haired boy next to me. Confirming my suspicions, Lelouch laid there and laughed gently, his eyelids closed and flickering in sleep. Seeing my best friend lying next to me, laughing without any trace of his normal mask of blank boredom, I found myself almost wanting to laugh myself. I was thoroughly grateful to ASEEC for giving me this opportunity. If Lloyd and Cecile hadn't saved me, I would have never been given the gift of being at the side of the one person I'd always cared about most.

I tried to recall if I had ever noticed this oddity from when we were children. Even when I screwed up my eyes and concentrated as hard as I could, the only thing I could remember from those summer nights was the feel of two warm bodies next to me, of frail little hands clutched in my own calloused ones. There was no childish laughter echoing across the years in my memory, although I was certain I would have remembered if there had been.

But then...Lelouch's laughter changed a little. Heavier, somehow. More...I was reluctant to give it a name, but it seemed almost...manic.

Insane.

"Lelouch?" I called softly.

His eyebrows drew forward, and he laughed even louder. The sound grated on my ears.

"Lelouch!" I called firmly, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him. His hysterical laughter died off into gentle giggles, and with another rough shake, finally ended completely. Lelouch made a soft noise of irritation, and his eyes fluttered open. He stared at me for a brief moment, and then he frowned.

"...What? Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Uh..." I swallowed. How did you explain to your best friend -no, he was my lover now, after today- how could you explain that you feared for your lover's mental stability? It was only laughter...right?

Just a reaction from his dreams. Like sleepwalking.

"You were...laughing."

Lelouch blinked, and his frown turned into confusion. "In my sleep?"

I nodded, and his confusion shifted into his trademark look of total and utter boredom with the world.

"And?"

Opening my mouth, I paused briefly, and then closed it again. I sighed in frustration, and tried again. "Well...it was creepy."

Blink. "Oh."

We stared at each other a moment longer, and then he smirked. "Sorry, I wasn't aware it bothered you so much when I laugh. I'll take care to conceal my amusement inwardly from now on so I don't inconvenience you."

Damn, he could be frustrating.

"You know that's not what I meant."

"Isn't it?" he smiled blandly.

"Of course not! You know I like it when you laugh, just...just not like that," I finished lamely, hating the burn in my cheeks that told me I was flushing in embarrassment.

"Ah. Well...I promise not to laugh strangely in my sleep in the future then."

He rolled over, facing away from me.

"Goodnight, Suzaku."

Sighing softly, I reached out and pulled him against me, refusing to let him sulk.

"You know I love you, you silly prissy prince. Now stop sulking."

"Fine, fine."

He never kept his promise, though.

Every night I spent in his room, though they'd become fewer in recent weeks, had ended up with me staring at the ceiling, listening to that strange hitching laughter.

And now, with my gun shaking wildly in my hands, glaring through eyes filled with tears and screaming obscenities at him, somehow all I could think about was that first night...when I heard Zero laughing in the bed next to me where Lelouch had once been.

I had known then, as I had always known.

But I didn't want to believe it.

I couldn't.

With his laughter echoing in my head, drowning out the words he was now screaming at me in rage, that hated red symbol in his eye bored into my soul.

_Ha ha ha, Suzaku. Ha ha ha._


	2. Crying

_"You were my source of strength_  
_I've traded everything that I love_  
_For this one thing_  
_(Stranded in the offering)"_  
_"Falling Inside the Black" by Skillet_

* * *

Lelouch Lamperouge doesn't laugh in his sleep anymore.

It's stupid, really, to think of something so inane while trying to find a hint of the madman buried underneath this fake Lelouch's life. Tomorrow was supposed to be my first day back at Ashford Academy since one year prior, and I really ought to have been sleeping at this moment. Instead, I found myself unable to sleep, irritably browsing through hours and hours of footage of a man I sold out to his own father.

My best friend. My worst enemy. My former lover.

The angry ball of rage I'd spent the past year struggling with boiled in my chest.

I hated him.

(I loved him.)

I couldn't forgive him.

(I wanted to.)

But I still didn't understand why he'd done... _that_...to Euphy. Beautiful, gentle, kind Euphy.

And if the video footage I watched now was to be believed, perhaps I never would. Despite Zero's re-emergence, despite his dramatic rescue of the Black Knights only yesterday, it seemed...somehow, impossibly...that Lelouch truly didn't remember, even now.

There wasn't enough time to go through every minute of Lelouch's life for the past year before my debut at Ashford tomorrow morning, but I would try to cram as much of it in as I could.

"How long do the cameras monitor him?" I had asked Villeta several hours ago, whilst she stood irritably by the doorway, hating me for throwing her department's surveillance abilities into question. "Are there any moments he is out of sight, at any point in time?"

She scoffed at me. "Of course not."

"You film him in the bathroom, as well?"

She paused a moment, carefully considering my words as though I were testing her with a trick question. "None of our female staff monitors that, but...yes, we do keep cameras on him. At all times."

I glanced over at her. "Even in the shower?"

Villeta huffed. "Yes."

I made a soft noise in acknowledgment, trying to ignore the spark of rage that ignited at her words. How odd, that even after everything he had done, everyone he'd killed...I could still find it in me to be angry that someone else had seen his naked body.

(Stupid.)

"What about when he's sleeping?"

She looked at me oddly. "Lord Kururugi, I highly doubt-"

"Do you monitor him when he is sleeping?" I repeated firmly.

She frowned at my tone, but nodded in assent regardless. No matter how much she still hated me for being involved in that "Orange" incident, she was still forced to give me respect as a Knight of Rounds.

Even if it burned her tongue on its way out.

"Very well. I have no further questions. You are dismissed."

"Yes, my Lord."

I felt her glare burning holes in the side of my head, but she nevertheless gave a respectful bow before leaving the room. I narrowed my eyes at the multiple windows on the wall-length screen, all filled with Lelouch's face at different times of the past year.

_Show me. Show me what no one else would have noticed._

_Zero._

But no matter how long I stared at those screens, no matter how many hours of footage I fast-forwarded through, he still looked the same. Still had the gentle smile. The warm eyes. That kind laughter untainted by the madness of Geass.

(Fake. All of it fake.)

Angered at my own inability to find something -anything- that I could point to and say, 'he remembers!', I slammed my fists down onto the console.

Instantly, I was assaulted by the audio I'd previously turned off from the multiple video feeds, all during different times of the year and day.

_"-Hey, Rolo-"  
_

_"Lelouch, you shouldn't-"  
_

_"-President, surely we ought to-"  
_

_"Brother, it's-"  
_

_"Shirley, what did-"  
_

_"Gosh, Lulu, you-"  
_

_"...Euphy..."_

I froze.

Heartbeat pulsing in my throat, I swiftly palmed the controls, muting and unmuting, rewinding and replaying, trying desperately to locate the video feed I'd heard. It had been faint, almost inaudible. Barely loud enough to call it a whisper.

But I know what I heard.

_I found you, you son of a-_

And, of course, because it inevitably happens when Lelouch is involved - what I found was nothing I'd expected.

I hit a few more keys, and the multiple screens became one large video, filling the wall with Lelouch's bedroom from three months ago. Two more button presses, and the camera zoomed in to his bed, and finally his face. Predictably, the sight filled me with that familiar rage that had been coursing through my veins ever since seeing the blood spurt from Euphemia's forehead, the gun in Zero's - _Lelouch's_ \- hand steady as he ended her life. After turning her into a monster. After painting her in the blood of the people he crusaded to save.

The sight of Lelouch crying in his sleep, however, drove all those thoughts away.

_What?_

It didn't make sense. My brain refused to process what I was seeing. Lelouch never cried. Never.

Though we had only spent a single year together as children, and only a few months as teenagers the year before this one, I had at least been able to understand Lelouch's vast, unending pride. He refused to let himself cry, at all times, in all situations. When he'd told me of witnessing his mother's murder -the event that crippled Nunnally beyond repair- his eyes were filled only with a bitter fury. When I'd senselessly beat his little body the first time I laid eyes on him, he'd only glared defiantly up at me, even as I blackened his face and bruised that perfect white Britannian skin. When walking through a sea of corpses, Lelouch's eyes had remained steadily forward, never wavering in their resolve even as I dissolved into tears at the sight of all those bodies. When I'd stared brokenly at the mangled ground of a country now enslaved, Lelouch had proudly declared his intent to crush his own homeland.

But this...

_"...Suzaku..."_

I blinked in surprise. His voice was faint, almost non-existant. The only reason I even knew the word he'd spoken was because I'd been staring at his lips the moment he opened his mouth. I turned the volume up to max output, winced slightly at the reverberating static hum that always appeared in a recording of silence, and then sat back to wait.

Several minutes passed before he quietly spoke again, his voice slurred by sleep.

_"...hontou ni...gomen nasai..."_

"Wha-" I stared in disbelief, mouth hanging open slightly. There hadn't been any mention in the surveillance records indicating Lelouch's new propensity to talk in his sleep. Certainly no mention of him speaking _Japanese_ in his sleep.

Maybe the members of Villeta's team simply thought he was speaking gibberish? Most Britannians didn't recognize Japanese anymore, since Charles di Britannia had banned its use eight years prior.

And then his words clicked in my brain.

_(Suzaku. I'm so sorry.)_

I gritted my teeth in anger. For everything he'd done, every time he'd hurt me and the people who cared about him most, he _dared_ to apologize when he didn't even remember-

_"...yurushite...kudasai..."_

For a brief moment, I wondered if I'd suddenly developed Geass, my vision was so clouded by red. I didn't even notice my hands shaking with rage.

How dare you, Lelouch. How dare you ask for forgiveness.

_"...Euphy..."_

How dare you speak her name.

_"...yameru...yameru...ore wa..."_

Lelouch began thrashing in his sleep, twisting awkwardly on the sheets. Tears still poured from under his closed eyelids.

_"...kore o...nozonde inai...iiya! Iiya!"_

His body jerked violently on the screen, and then he shot up into a sitting position, screaming at the top of his lungs. The sound nearly ruptured my eardrums, and my head jerked reflexively in agony even as I flailed for the volume controls. I must have managed to hit the proper buttons, because the sound died down to a level far below the sound barrier it had just broken.

Numbly, I watched Rolo burst into Lelouch's bedroom. _"Brother! Brother! What's wrong?"_

Lelouch continued to scream insensibly, his eyes wide and unseeing. After a moment of indecisiveness, Rolo lifted an arm into the air and then roughly slapped him. Lelouch fell limply onto the sheets, gasping for breath.

 _"Rolo? What...?"_ he finally managed, gazing up at his false brother with a confused expression.

 _"You were screaming,"_ Rolo promptly informed him, pasting a worried expression on his normally dead face.

_"Was it a nightmare?"_

_"I..."_ Lelouch paused, and then his eyes unfocused. _"I...I don't know. What was I..."_

He trailed off, and then looked up at Rolo in earnest desperation. _"I feel like it was something terribly, terribly important. Rolo...what...I feel like I've forgotten something. Something that never should have been forgotten. I don't...do you know, Rolo? What it is I've forgotten?"_

Rolo stared at him impassively. _"It's nothing, brother. Just a nightmare."_

Lelouch's unnatural purple eyes drifted away. _"Yeah...yeah, you're right."_

But it was wrong.

So very, very wrong.

Disgust coiled in my abdomen, where only rage had been before.

I had done this to him.

And he...

He-...

_"Euphy...stop it...stop it...I didn't want this. No. No!"_


	3. Weeping

_ "Why did I fall in love with you? _

_ No matter how much time passes, _

_ I thought you would always be here... _

_ But you chose a different path." _

_ "Dōshite Kimi o Suki ni Natte Shimattandarō" by DBSK/TVXQ _

* * *

Lelouch Lamperouge cries in his sleep.

I stared at that screen long after Rolo left the room and went back to bed. I stared, unseeing, as Lelouch played a game of chess with himself to avoid going back to sleep after the nightmare he couldn't remember. I stared when he finally fell asleep at the chess table, head propped on one hand the way he always slept in class. I stared until Lelouch awoke long enough to stumble back over to his bed, and then I blinked to discover dried tears on my own cheeks.

It didn't make sense.

Could the Emperor's Geass still be in effect, but be weak enough to falter during sleep?

Did he really remember, and was just that good at acting?

Or was Lelouch's agony so great that it broke through even the strongest Geass?

I shuddered involuntarily.

_ No. This doesn't change anything. _

_ He is still Zero. _

Right?

* * *

It didn't make sense.

Lelouch smiled warmly up at me, his violet eyes filled with a gentleness I hadn't seen since we were children.

"It's been a long time, Suzaku."

"This brings back memories, Lelouch," I answered him with a smile that I didn't feel.

Shirley appeared at my side, bubbly as always, and then Rivalz jumped me from behind, and naturally Milly burst into the classroom moments later. I spoke with them, I smiled with them, I laughed at Lelouch's scolding of Milly...but I had absolutely no idea what was coming out of my mouth. Nothing made sense.

How could he look at me like that, if he was Zero once more?

How could he smile at me like that, if he remembered me grinding his face into the floor before the father he despised?

How could he laugh so carefree like that, if he remembered Nunnally and knew that she'd been stolen away?

_ It didn't make sense. _

I spent the entirety of that day in a strange sort of daze, possibly brought on by my complete lack of sleep, but mostly because of the strange sense of surrealism I was experiencing. Lunch with everyone was an...odd affair, especially when Lelouch playfully teased me for not revealing Zero's true identity to them.

I almost wanted to.

(To see if I could wipe that fake smile off that stupid fake face.)

* * *

I spent the night before Milly's "welcome home" festival browsing through all the surveillance records taken during Lelouch's sleep over the past two months. When Lelouch slept, I knew from personal experience, he let his guard down. Emotions that he normally kept bottled up deep beneath that permanently bored expression showed up when he slept.

During the months he'd spent planning Britannia's demise, he had laughed and laughed and _laughed_.

And from the records I went through now, he had apparently spent the entirety of this past year crying every single night. But why?

For the sister he couldn't remember?

For the plans he'd had that I crushed into dust?

For Euphy?

I wish I understood. More than anything, I wish I understood why he had done that to her.

I wished so hard I almost wanted to beg V.V. to give me Geass, that accursed power that had driven my best friend insane. Or, perhaps not insane, but certainly on the border of attaining it. I wanted to force Lelouch to tell me why, to rip those secrets straight from his soul.

Often, Lelouch spoke Japanese in his sleep, even as he cried soundless tears recorded for the entire surveillance team to witness. I tried not to let it affect me, but hearing your native language after so many years of being forbidden to speak it, hear it,  _ think  _ it - it was like breathing fresh air after years spent in the most polluted city. That Lelouch could remember Japanese that well, just from our silly little lessons during that kind summer we'd spent together, made me ache for the friend I'd lost. I had new friends now of course, like Gino, Anya, Nina, Shirley, Milly, Rivalz, and countless more...but I knew, even as I hated to admit it, that I could have never called those people "friend" without Lelouch's presence. Hell, even Arthur wouldn't be with me now if it weren't for Lelouch; it was at his request that Milly allowed the Student Council to own a pet within school grounds at all.

And, now that I was thinking about it, technically I wouldn't even be  _ alive _ if it weren't for Lelouch. I could still remember staring across the road at that strange masked figure, with his ridiculous cape and even more ridiculous hand gestures (Lelouch had always been dramatic), watching a stranger take the blame for the crime I'd been accused of. I hated remembering that day, because truthfully...

I had loved Zero in those first few moments.

He had seemed, at first, like everything an  _ Eleven _ could have ever dreamed or wished for. A man who refused to bow down to the arrogance of Britannia, who crusaded to free a nation that had been enslaved against its will (in the wake of my own sin). He had saved me. I could still remember the feel of those thin arms wrapping me protectively in that silly cape, holding me close against him as he leapt off the bridge. Could still remember that confident voice saying next to my ear: "I've got you, Suzaku Kururugi. You're safe."

Could still remember that horrible laughter as he laid next to me at night, amused by his own lies.

_ Dammit _ .

No matter how much time passed, I still couldn't get past this roundabout way of thinking. He is my friend, but he is my enemy. I love him, but I hate him. I miss him, but I want to kill him. I regret hurting him, but I want to hurt him even more.

" _...Suzaku... _ "

I jumped in surprise, having forgotten that I'd left the audio on before delving into traitorous memories.

" _...doushite? _ "

Why? Why what?

" _...doushite kimi wo...suki ni natte...shimattandarou? _ "

I couldn't breathe.

Shit.  _ Shit _ .

I had to stop watching these things.

( _ Why did I fall in love with you? _ )

Feeling sick, I reached up to turn the stupid thing off, hands shaking. I had to stop torturing myself like this. I was a Knight of Rounds now, a Britannian soldier of the highest degree, sworn to kill all of its enemies.

Sworn to kill Zero.

_ I have to be sure. I have to **know**. _

* * *

And so I cornered him the next day. Told him of my plans. Begged him, with my eyes and my tone, not to lie to me.

"So the Japanese people don't need Zero anymore."

(Please don't be Zero.)

Lelouch made an odd sort of strangled noise as soon as he put the phone to his ear and heard her voice, my heart sinking with the sound. I knew he could not lie to Nunnally, above all others. He would lie to everyone dear to him, everyone who ever meant anything at all, even himself...but not to Nunnally.

But then he glanced back at me with an odd sort of confused, questioning look in his eyes...and I began to doubt.

"Um...I think you have the wrong person," he said then, sounding rather bewildered.

Could it be?

Could he really not remember?

Could they really be two different people this time?

(So, then...who was Zero?)

Lelouch handed the phone back to me, his expression abruptly irritated as he gazed at me while I said goodbye to Nunnally. I had never been the best liar, but a year of lying to everyone I knew had taught me well. I hung up the phone, and slowly looked up at my -friend's? enemy's?- amethyst eyes.

"Suzaku, what was that all about?" he demanded seriously.

"Uh...I -"

"You know just as well as I do that I only have a brother."

Perhaps I should have thought this through a bit more.

"W-Well, she...she lost her brother at a young age, and she showed me a picture, and he seems to look like you, and I thought-" I shut my mouth before I could spit out anything else.  _ Stupid, stupid, stupid! _

He eyed me silently for a moment, eyebrows drawn forward in puzzlement.

"You've been acting weird, Suzaku," Lelouch said slowly. "Ever since last year when you left."

Last year-?

Oh. I'd almost forgotten.

* * *

 

_ The door to my dorm room burst open and then slammed shut seconds later, harsh breathing slashing through the silence like a whip. _

_ I didn't have to look to know who it was. _

_ I wasn't ready to face him. _

_ "You're leaving." _

_ I wasn't ready for this. _

_ "Yes." _

_ I kept my back turned to him, unwilling to face him and see that...loathsome, hated (beautiful) face. My hands clenched on the edges of the suitcase lying open on my bed. _

_ "Why?" _

_ "I was promoted," I answered curtly, the words like ash in my mouth. _

_ Silence reigned. _

_ "For what?" _

_ For selling you to the man you hate most. _

_ "Catching Zero." _

_ "You- ...wow, congratulations. How did-" _

_ "Shut up." _

_ "Eh?" _

_ "Shut. Up." _

_ He was quiet for so long, I almost forgot he was there. Roughly, I started throwing my things into the suitcase, no longer caring about folding anything or arranging it neatly. I just wanted out. Out of this room, out of this school, out of this life. _

_ (But I couldn't have that, because the one standing behind me had ordered me to live.) _

_ "I'm sorry." _

_ "For what?" I snarled, nearly snapping the toothbrush in my hand. _

_ "I know she meant a lot to you. I'm sorry that Zero-" _

_ "Don't. Just...don't." _

_ He stayed quiet long enough this time that I was able to finish packing everything I owned. (Though, indeed, it wasn't much.) _

_ "Did you love her?" Lelouch asked softly. _

_ I inhaled sharply, glad suddenly that I hadn't turned to face him. He couldn't see my struggling, screwed-up expression. _

_ "Yes," I bit out, nearly snapping my teeth on my own tongue. _

_ "...I see." I heard him shift his feet a little on the carpet. "The way I love Rolo, or...?" _

_ He trailed off, but I didn't need words to hear his meaning. I wanted, suddenly, to **hurt** him. To see that perfect white skin covered in red, the way he'd drenched Euphy's before he murdered her. But the Emperor had ordered me not to hurt him, to leave him as bait for C.C. Well, that was fine. _

_ Because I had learned how to hurt people without fists. _

_ I learned from him, after all. _

_ "I love her," I said simply, glaring at the white wall on the other side of my bed. He was silent for a few moments more, apparently gathering his thoughts. _

_ "...you kissed her?" _

_ "Yes."  _

_ Though, technically she had kissed me. And I had stood there, wide-eyed and frozen. _

_ Lelouch's voice had the slightest hint of hoarseness when he spoke next. _

_ "And did you...have sex with her?" _

_ No. "Yes." _

_ I was beginning to hate silence. _

_ I forced my expression into an angry frown, and slowly turned to face him. I had expected...anger, perhaps. Hurt, even. Instead, he looked at me with a gentle, sad kind of pity. _

_ "You are a terrible liar, Suzaku." _

* * *

 

"Suzaku." Lelouch took a few steps towards me. "What is going on?"

"Nothing," I replied hoarsely, still immersed in memories.

He gave a lopsided smile. "You really are a terrible liar, Suzaku."

"Stop it."

Lelouch sighed. "Look, I'm not sure what's going on or why, but...we're still friends, right?"

I stared up at him. What could I possibly say to that?

"I...-"

"We promised, all those years ago."

It was so dangerously close to what he'd said to me on the phone, right after Euphy's death, before I'd entered the Lancelot with the intent of killing him.

What else could I say?

"Always."

He smiled at my answer, more gently than he had ever looked at me before. And with that gentle expression still lingering at the corners of his eyes, he leaned forward slowly towards my face.

Giving me enough time to pull away, if I wanted to.

(I didn't.)


	4. Lying

_ "I can't undo the things that led us to this place _

_ But I know there's something more to us than our mistakes _

_ So is it you, or is it me? _

_ I know I'm so blind when we don't agree, _

_ But you should have known me by now." _

_ "Believe" by Skillet _

* * *

The real Lelouch Lamperouge laughs in his sleep.

Only the fake one cries in remorse.

As I stood there, looking around at all the members of the surveillance team with their red-rimmed eyes and slack expressions, I suddenly wished I'd had the sense to realize that before this moment.

When I had browsed through the video clips of Lelouch's sleeping habits all those weeks ago, I had been so angry at Zero's re-emergence, so terrified that I might have to kill Lelouch after all, I'd forgotten one very important detail.

I never watched any of the surveillance taken  _ after _ Zero's reappearance.

Berating myself for my own stupidity, I leaned over one of the agency member's shoulders and swiftly typed in the commands that would pull up all previous footage. I scanned the dates and times, and chose the night of Milly's welcome home festival in a moment of dark amusement.

And as that sickening laughter spilled out from the speakers placed around the room, I almost found myself joining in his mockery of my ignorance.

I should have known.

More than anyone else who had ever known him, _I should have known._

But I let my own hope blind me to the truth yet again. I had wanted (still wanted) so desperately to believe in him, in my closest and cruelest friend, that I ignored my own instincts.

I had known when Zero looked down at me from that giant screen and spoke with an intimate knowledge of my inner self, like a lover, before that strange procession of Zeros calmly escaped execution.

I had known when Zero challenged Schneizel to chess, and named me as his prize.

I had known when Zero moved his king like a weapon, the way Lelouch had always done ever since he was a child.

I had known when Lelouch begged Shirley not to make him lose anyone else ever again.

I had known when he didn't show up at her funeral.

I had known, but I hadn't allowed myself to  _ see _ .

* * *

And as I stared at the phone in my hand, that hated and beautiful name displayed boldly on the screen, I wondered if I ever would. I wondered if I'd ever really known him at all, that strange boy filled with such an odd mix of pride and kindness, who'd grown into such a monster.

I vowed not to blind myself to him ever again.

"Lelouch...are you Zero?"

There was an odd strangled noise on the other end of the phone then, reminding me of the way he'd responded to Nunnally's voice so many weeks ago...when he'd made me believe his lies all over again.

I was so tired of his lies.

"That's right," he said softly, but with every ounce of pride. "I am...Zero."

They were the same words he'd spoken after the cracked halves of his mask fell to the floor a year ago.

I had known. I had expected it. Yet still, somehow, it didn't stop the words from piercing through my heart like the sharpest sword. I closed my eyes at the onslaught of pain, hating myself for caring at all. For caring about a man who could so easily kill the people closest to him, who had hurt me more than anyone else in the entire world.

And yet he still dared to beg me for help.

"Do you think I will accept your request?" I snarled, half wanting to throw the phone into the pool I stood at, just to see him drown.

"I don't," he said brokenly, his voice hoarse with unshed tears. I hated myself for caring. "But I have no one else to ask."

"How selfish."

"I know! But I only have you...only you..."

_ Only me, huh? _

If I was the only one he could turn to in this moment, the only one he could possibly rely on, then I would use it to my advantage. I would force him to tell me everything. I would pry my answers straight from his soul.

Even if I had to kill him to do it.

* * *

I arrived early at the Kururugi shrine. Whether out of nostalgia or simply my own sense of masochism, I didn't know.

Retracing my steps from eight years ago was both easier and harder than I had expected. I arrived at that little dilapidated storehouse far swifter than I'd been able to as a boy, now that my legs had grown, and stared at it with changed eyes.

My first thought...was that it was unbearably tiny.

I couldn't believe my father had been so crass as to exile two battered children to this pitiful excuse for a shelter. All of us had scorned Britannians back then, myself included, but even so - this wrecked ensemble masquerading as a house wasn't fit for an _animal_ to live in, much less a frail boy and his crippled sister.

And yet, they had survived, whether by Lelouch's stubbornness or Nunnally's goodness, and the three of us had shared so many moments filled with laughter and joy.

What happened?

What could have possibly changed you so much, Lelouch?

How did we fall so far from those gentle times we shared together?

The despair and hurt I felt was swiftly churning into a boiling fury. It was Geass. It  _ had _ to be Geass. Lelouch had hated Britannia even all those years ago, yes, but I could not recall any hint of the hideous murderer he had now become. The Head Eunuchs of the Chinese Federation hadn't been wrong when they'd accused him of avoiding ants on the ground out of kindness; as a child, he had abhorred the mere possibility of ending life -  _ any _ life.

I could still remember the fear that had gripped me one day as I watched Lelouch bend down to get a closer look at what was clearly a  _ mamushi _ \- the most poisonous snake in all of Japan. He had turned to smile at me, his elegant fingers pointing at his newest discovery, but I had already snatched the pocket knife from the folds of my hakama and had the snake's head pinned beneath my hands before he could finish turning his head.

_ "Don't kill it!"  _ he had shrieked then, as if it was the most horrifying concept he could ever dream of. Even after explaining that a single bite from its fangs landed people in the hospital for weeks, that it could  _ kill _ a child...still he gazed at me with those wide, fearful eyes. Truly afraid- not for his own life, but for the creature I intended to slay in defense of him.

_ What happened? _

The words echoed in a loop around my head as I turned back towards the main stairs leading up from the street below, circling round my ears as I came to a halt several feet from the top of the stone steps. I gazed at the stone beneath the red archway to ward off spirits, both anticipating and dreading the sight of him.

For several minutes, I wondered if he would show at all.

But then he was there, staring at me with that same neutrality that had always infuriated me.  


"I'm surprised you came," I said coldly, as soon as he'd ascended the stairs and met my gaze. I found myself momentarily surprised at our similar choice of clothing. I had chosen the Ashford uniform because it was the only thing I owned that didn't speak of Britannia or my own loyalty to its crown. Lelouch obviously couldn't show up in full Zero ensemble, but I had fully expected him to dress casually, like he had the day Shirley committed- no, was  _ murdered _ .

By the man she'd loved so much.

_ "I...I love Lulu. Suzaku...do you hate him?" _

_ "I...loved him." _

_ "And now?" _

"You're not human..." I hissed spitefully at him, the anger inside me rising with every moment he refused to look me in the eye, every caustic word he answered my questions with.

And then...he was on his knees. Bowing down to me the way I had wanted so long ago back when we first met.

"Forgive me, Suzaku," he begged, his ebony bangs shielding his eyes from me even now.

_ "I cannot forgive him." _

_ "Nothing's unforgivable." _

But there is, Shirley. There is.

It felt good to shove his face into the ground. I hated myself for taking pleasure in it even as I ground my foot even harder into the back of his skull, forcing his face into the gravel.

"Do you think I will forgive you!?"

Every word he spoke in answer to my snarls only angered me even more. His lies, his manipulation, his cruelty, his pride...I hated all of it in this moment, more than I had ever hated anything before (myself included). The hot fury was consuming me like poison, lodged in my throat like a sob, bringing tears to my eyes with its ferocity. I screamed at him with all the hate I felt, shoving his face into the earth as hard as I could - he could barely speak now from the rocks pressing against his diaphragm.

I yelled at him for everything he'd done...everyone he'd hurt. The Ashford Student Council. Shirley. Kallen. Nunnally. Euphy.

But really, I was only yelling at him for the way he'd hurt me.

Every gentle smile, every sweet kiss, every tender brush of our hands as we passed in the halls...he had played me like a master violinist, plucking every ounce of sweet note from my soul until there was nothing left but a bitter, worn out remnant.

_ "It must be that you're the one who can't forgive him." _

"If you want to apologize, then bring Euphy back to life! Right now!"

(Tell me it wasn't all lies.)

"Save the world with your evil intentions, right now!"

(Show me that you're still that kind boy inside, somewhere.)

_ "You don't want to forgive him." _

"If it's a lie, then lie until the very end!" I shouted, pulling him up by his shirt collar. He stared at me with wide, frightened eyes, his face covered in dirt and bloody scrapes.

"I can't undo what I've done!" he yelled in response, his face twisted in agony. Was it fake?

How was I supposed to know when he was acting, and when he was real?

It didn't make sense. How could he have been so unbearably kind when he was younger, and now so heartless? How could he be so callous about Euphy's and Shirley's deaths, when he'd exerted so much effort to keep Kallen and myself alive?

"Answer me, Lelouch!" I shrieked, throwing him just for the sheer pleasure of seeing him helplessly tossed like a rag doll. "Why did you cast a 'live' Geass on me?"

Lelouch slowly raised his head up to stare at me, apparently wordless. His violet eyes gazed at me solemnly, some unnamed emotion I didn't want to think about lurking in their depths.

" ** _WHY!_** " I screamed, the word mangled in my throat like a sob. After a moment of silence, he averted his eyes and coldly answered every question I threw at him with a hideous answer I would have never expected from any human.

And yet...

Why was he looking away from me?

If he was truly that shamelessly arrogant and cruel, why wouldn't he boldly return my gaze?

_...oh. _

_ I know those eyes _ .

I had seen that same expression for eight years, reflected back at me from mirrors and windows. It was the look of someone who'd made a terrible mistake, during a moment of utter thoughtlessness, and spent every moment of their life attempting to atone for it...no matter how much cruelty or unfairness they suffered in exchange.

_ "I've forgiven him a long time ago." _

Was this what you'd seen, Shirley? Was this why you forgave him for killing your father?

Is this why you believed in him, Euphy?

"That's a lie...isn't it?" I said softly, not really expecting an answer. I looked over at the trees to my left the entire time I spoke to him, but I didn't see them. I saw only that little storehouse that we'd spent so many happy times in, when I'd learned that not all Britannians were as evil as I'd thought when still a child. I wanted to hold on tightly to that old belief, even if it betrayed me to the end.

Lelouch stared at my outstretched hand as though he'd never seen it before.

And maybe he never really had.

Maybe he'd simply expected me to be there, at his side, as though it were a foregone conclusion. He'd acted that way, in the beginning, when Zero had offered his hand to me in my prisoner's outfit and asked me to join his war.

How strange, that I was now doing the same.

He had just begun to smile at me when the bullet sailed between our fingers.

The way he screamed at me then, with his arms pinned by Britannian soldiers, hurt more than finding Shirley's cold body days ago.

And the way he looked back at me with that twisted expression, perched on Guilford's Knightmare, hurt more than seeing Euphemia fall in her sea of blood.

But it wasn't until days later...that I realized it was the first time I'd ever seen Lelouch cry while awake.  


The first time I'd ever seen the _real_ Lelouch cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on what Suzaku says in R2 episode 13: _"I...loved him."_ In the original Japanese, when they're talking, Shirley says: _"Watashi wa Lulu ga suki."_ This can mean either "I love Lulu" or "I like Lulu." However, from the way she was so seriously staring at Suzaku, and the nature of their conversation (not to mention the way she says it later to Lelouch himself), I'm rather confident that the context of her particular use of "suki" means "love" in this situation. And barely two seconds after that, Suzaku says something very interesting. He doesn't say 'I don't hate him' in response to Shirley's question...he says, very specifically: _"Boku wa...suki datta."_ Considering the context of their conversation, literally: "I loved him." Ironically, this is almost the exact same thing CC said to Mao before she killed him - "Suki datta yo, Mao." (I loved you, Mao.) I find it very interesting that he said something so similar...though, of course, none of the translators wanted to acknowledge that. 8D


	5. Screaming

_"If I told you I've been cleaning my soul,_

_If I promise you I'll regain control,_

_Will you open your door, and let me in?_

_Take me for who I am, and not for who I've been?"_

_"Sorry" by Daughtry_

* * *

Lelouch vi Britannia, 99th Emperor of the Holy Britannian Empire, screams in his sleep.

The first time I heard it (my first night spent as the Knight of Zero), fear seized my heart like a physical hand inside my chest. I have never moved so fast in my life, not even when dodging a machine gun in the underbelly of Ashford to save Nunnally. Clothed in nothing save my own boxers, I bolted into the hall and sprinted for his chambers as though my own life depended upon it rather than his.

The sight of C.C. standing in front of his door and calmly regarding it with her eerie gaze, however, froze me in my steps.

"Wha-" I choked, momentarily ignoring the terror squeezing my insides. ( _He's_ **_dying_ ** _, what the hell are you doing standing around_ -)

She slowly turned her head toward me, pinning me in her calm gaze with those strange wolf's eyes. After a tense moment, framed by that _awful_ screaming ( _whyareyoustillstandinghere_ -), she gave me a small smile filled with an eternity of sorrow I could never begin to comprehend. Gently, she pushed open the door to the king's chambers, and then turned right back around and headed towards her own room...as though there were absolutely nothing wrong.

_What-?!_

I rushed into the room even as my thoughts tumbled over each other like newborn kittens, preparing to fight off whatever assassin was torturing him within. However, contrary to the absolutely unbearable sound emanating from his throat...Lelouch was not, in fact, dying. Nor was he in any imminent danger, from what I could see.

Utterly baffled, I crawled onto the enormous bed so I could discern the cause of his unending screams. Now that I was closer, I could see that he was...strangely, impossibly... _still_ sleeping.

For a moment, I just stared at him in amazement.

Then, recalling a memory from several months ago, I backhanded him sharply across the face. (And ignored the spark of pleasure I took in doing it.)

The terrible scream fractured and abruptly died off into silence. Dazed, Lelouch opened his eyes and blinked rapidly. I remained silent, staring down at the man I had publicly sworn fealty to earlier this very same day. His eyes focused on my face above him, and he presented me with an ugly smirk.

"Do you really hate my laughter that much, Suzaku?" he drawled, with a dark undertone I would have to be deaf to mistake.

"You were screaming," I informed him flatly.

His eyebrows raised slightly in surprise. "I see."

For a tense moment, we stared at each other in silence. The sudden absence of sound gave my ears a pressurized feel, as though I'd unexpectedly dropped several hundred feet into the ocean.

"What were you dreaming about?"

He stared at me for moment longer with his normal blank expression. "Nunnally."

I flinched involuntarily, and his cruel smirk reappeared.

_Bastard._

I slowly slid back down off the bed and stood upright. Glaring fiercely at the wall behind his head, I placed my fist over my heart in a paradigm of loyalty I wasn't sure I truly felt.

"Will that be all, Your Majesty?"

His smirk widened as he finally caught sight of my rather...distinct lack of clothing. "Perhaps."

Gritting my teeth, I turned around and headed for the exit to his rooms, berating myself for the fear that had gripped me only minutes before. I barely restrained myself from slamming the door behind me as I entered the hall.

Where C.C. was, apparently, waiting for me.

After a long, uncomfortable silence in which we stared at each other (much the same way as Lelouch and I just had), I finally ground out: "What?"

Her expression shifted ever so slightly into an odd mix of sorrow and amusement. "You haven't realized it yet, have you?"

Sometimes I wondered if I would ever understand this strange woman.

"Realized what, exactly?"

She hummed languidly, like a purring cat. "Hmm, I wonder."

And then sometimes I could just care less.

"Let me know when you figure it out," I snapped, and then headed for the next door down the hall from Lelouch's quarters, where I promptly indulged my childish urge to slam a door.

Twenty minutes later, the screaming started again.

* * *

_"So?" Lelouch demanded, whirling around to pin me with an unnatural crimson stare. "What of it?"_

_"I will make you atone for-"_

_"For my sins?" He gave a short bark of laughter that was so bitter it could never be mistaken for humor. "That's interesting, coming from the man who fired FLEIJA."_

_"You know damn well that wasn't because I-"_

_"Oh, so will you blame me? Or will you blame Geass itself? Or perhaps you could blame Nina for creating it in the first place?"_

_"The only blame here lies with you!" I snarled, the sword in my hands shaking with renewed fury._

_"And so you will kill me," Lelouch said softly, smiling at me in a parody of kindness. "Avenge your precious princess...and then what, Suzaku?"_

_For a moment, I just stared at him._

_As much as I hated to admit...I honestly hadn't thought about it._

_His smile widened in amusement, clearly able to see my thoughts plastered on my face. "Would you tell the Royal Family and the other Knights how Zero callously murdered their beloved Emperor, and how you slew him with the hand of justice? And when they asked you who Zero was, what would you tell them?"_

_I opened my mouth to answer, but Lelouch was already speaking again._

_"You'd tell them that he was the lost 17th Prince, Lelouch vi Britannia, and then...what? Do you think that when my brother Schneizel seizes the throne, he would reward you? Perhaps give you a higher ranking in your beloved order of Knights?"_

_The mockery in his voice increased with every word, searing my ears and my heart with his disdain._

_"You are a fool, Suzaku. What do you think sounds better? A disgraced prince slaughtering his father in revenge for the deaths of his mother and sister, after leading an entire world to war against his own home country, bringing shame to the name of the Holy Britannian Empire? Or...an Eleven, the forgotten son of the last true leader of Japan, who conspired to rise in the ranks in order to get close enough to the Emperor so that he could avenge the enslavement of his own people?"_

_Bile rose in my throat._

_"I'll tell you what would happen, Suzaku Kururugi. They would execute you. The Japanese would hail you as a hero and a martyr, and the Britannians would take it as inevitable proof that Numbers cannot be trusted and should be wiped off the face of this earth. And then, Schneizel would lead Britannia in a crusade to crush every remaining rebellion and government in this world...and he would eventually rule over_ **_all_** _."_

_It made a horrible, terrible kind of sense._

_I stared at him in wordless horror, throat and mouth working in vain to produce answers I didn't have. I wanted to deny it, to tell him that it was impossible - but I knew, deep in my gut, that he was right._

_(Lelouch was always right.)_

_"That- That doesn't mean you can just get away with-"_

_"Suzaku. What if I told you that I have a plan to unite the world with true peace, and that it will be accomplished with my death by your hand?"_

_His words stole the breath from my lungs._

_"Lelouch?" C.C. asked in alarm, rising from her crouch on the ground nearby. I'd almost forgotten she was there. He turned his head to meet her gaze, and they stared at each other wordlessly for several minutes - while I struggled to regain some semblance of coherent thought._

"Suzaku."

I jolted awake and flung myself out of the bed ready to fight whomever was in my room, before catching a glimpse of white in my peripheral vision. Lelouch vi Britannia, in all his regal glory, frowned at me from barely two feet away in the most ridiculously opulent, dazzling white robes I had ever seen. My eyes traveled up the length of him, where they finally settled on his head...upon which was the most _ridiculous_ hat I'd ever laid eyes upon.

"What the _hell_ are you wearing?"

"Robes befitting my station, obviously. You've slept too long, Suzaku - we will be late."

I scowled at him. "Sorry, it's hard to sleep when _someone_ is screaming their lungs out the whole night."

His eyes narrowed slightly, my only hint that I'd pissed him off. "You have ten minutes. Your Knight's robes are hanging on the armoire."

The Emperor whirled around in much the same way Zero always had, flinging his garments in that familiar, imperious gesture, and exited my room with all the dignity of his new position.

"Yes, Your Majesty," I whispered bitterly to the empty air, wondering if I'd made the right decision.

* * *

For many weeks after that first night, I continued to question myself. I didn't understand how Lelouch could possibly achieve everything he'd said, especially with his current actions. Destroying the structure of the nobility so that everyone in Britannia was equal...abolishing the practice of enslaving nations and assigning them _numbers_ instead of citizenship...putting fair laws into practice and generally helping the collective citizens of his new nation...I didn't understand it. Even if Schneizel made his move as Lelouch had predicted, even if the Black Knights joined him and it turned into a world war beyond anything ever seen before, with FLEIJA as the catalyst...how could the death of a king, beloved by the average citizen, possibly achieve world peace? Would it not simply create chaos as the people scrambled to figure out their own government, with no active leader?

Did he simply intend to crush Britannia, as he'd sworn to all those years ago?

And was this, then, simply revenge? Not the desire to atone for his sins?

Only Lelouch's screams answered me in the dead of night.

And then-

_Nunnally._

As I reeled from the words she'd directed at me from the screen, Lelouch's hideously familiar laughter interrupted my shock. Impossibly, he began to speak to her in the most condescending tone I had ever heard him use to anyone. I could hardly believe the words coming out of his mouth, especially towards _Nunnally_...whom I'd thought he was incapable of holding ill will towards.

But then, my eyes were drawn down to his shaking hands.

Oh. _Oh_.

I had known Lelouch was an incredible actor in the back of my mind, after being fooled by him for so long even when I knew he was Zero, but to _see_ it like this...

To see him callously flinging evil words he didn't truly feel towards the only person that had ever really meant anything to him at all-

With a last angry sentence flung at her faster than my ears could follow, he ended the transmission.

Silence filled the chamber more effectively than a scream.

* * *

It was an interesting thing, to finally witness honest emotion from Lelouch. In the presence of the only people who knew the _real_ meaning of Zero Requiem (Lloyd and Cecile had only guessed a fraction of it, despite what they thought), Lelouch dropped his mask of cruel arrogance and shouted at the top of his lungs, flinging diatribe at C.C. in much the same way as he now flung his beloved chess set across the room.

"I'm so...I'm so..." he snarled, face contorted in anguish as his entire body shuddered with the emotions he could no longer suppress.

_No. You will not back out of this now._

"Lelouch."

Before he'd even raised his head to look at me, I had him off the ground by the collar of his shirt. He stared at me in mild surprise, until the next words out of my mouth.

"Our strategic objective has not changed!" I snapped, frowning at him with the anger and rage I'd been hiding since we left the World of C. Lelouch's eyes widened in renewed horror, staring at me in much the same way he had the last time I'd had him off the ground by one hand. C.C. leapt to her feet, ready to defend her - what, master? Accomplice? Plaything? I didn't know. I only knew that Lelouch had promised to atone for his sins, and I would hold him to that.

_"Suzaku Kururugi, Knight of Seven, wilt thou, upon this day, pledge thy fealty to this son of Britannia, and stand as a Knight to him alone?"_

_"Yes, Your Majesty."_

_"Dost thou wish to abandon thyself, and be sword and shield for the sake of true peace?"_

_"Yes, Your Majesty."_

_Lelouch, still clothed in Zero's garments, took my offered sword and gently touched each of my shoulders._

_(I tried not to think of Euphemia.)_

_"I, Lelouch vi Britannia, do hereby dub thee, Suzaku Kururugi, as the Knight of Zero, a Knight above all others. May your courage and devotion become a shining example to the people of the Empire and the world. May you become my shield and my sword, who will slash away my enemies, my weaknesses, and all of my sins."_

_"Yes...Your Majesty."_

"We cannot stop just because we know Nunnally is alive!" I pulled him closer to my face, a parody of the tenderness we had once shared. "What is the Zero Requiem for, then?"

I flung him at the wall in anger, though I tried to tone down my strength enough that I didn't cause him true harm. Despite the fury still boiling within me, I was his Knight...in name, in stature, and in truth.

He stared up at me with wide eyes, wordless.

"Remember our promise," I snarled, before whirling around and exiting the room.

"Suzaku!"

I stopped, staring down the hall. There had been reproach in her voice, if not also a plea for...something. What, I wasn't sure I wanted to know. I could not provide the comfort Lelouch needed in this moment, the comfort she apparently wanted me to give him.

"I am his sword. I will slash away his enemies and his weaknesses," I recited, and then turned to her. "So, C.C...become his shield."

She blinked in surprise. "Wh-"

"It is your role to protect him," I informed her, turning away once more.

She seemed amused, in her strange sad way. "Saying whatever you want..."

"Lelouch is your accomplice, right?" I interrupted, and continued to walk away.

_A sword cannot protect, C.C._

_Only destroy._

* * *

Confined to the Imperial Palace now that I was dead to the world, I could only watch in horror on the television screen in my room as the Emperor of the entire world ordered the deaths of everyone who'd spoken even the barest hint of dislike at his coronation. Men, women, _children_...entire families, marched before crowds of people and executed like they were the foulest criminals. Even though it still pained me to move at all after escaping and surviving the Lancelot's explosion several days prior (most likely due to that insufferable "Live!" command, since I possessed no memories of my escape), I leapt out of my bed and ran into the bathroom...where I immediately retched into the sink. When only dry heaves remained, I shuddered in the aftermath of horror.

His words from weeks before echoed in my head: _"This is only the beginning, still. I will create more rivers of blood, enough to obscure the name of the massacre princess...and erase it from people's memories."_

Rivers of blood, indeed.

I shakily made my way back into the bedroom, but just before I reached the remote lying at my bedside, something on the screen caught my eye. Even though the world was watching Lelouch in this moment on the international broadcast - with his cruel smile and even crueler laugh in the face of the slaughter he'd commanded - my eyes were drawn instead to C.C., ever present at her contractor's side. She stared at the Emperor just like everyone else in the crowd - but, though their faces contorted with fear and hatred, she looked only...unbearably, endlessly sad. As though she were watching a struggling animal take its last inevitable breaths.

(Though it hurt, though she cared, though she wished desperately to save him...there was nothing that could be done.)

The beginnings of insight swirled in my head. Heart lodged in my throat, I couldn't hardly believe or comprehend the idea that had just spawned within me. And yet...

And yet-

When Emperor Lelouch returned to his palace of mindless slaves, I was there waiting for him.

He fixed me with a frigid stare. "I told you to stay out of sigh-"

Utilizing the speed for which I was known, I snatched his hand from within the folds of white silk and held on tightly enough that he couldn't pull away...and prayed for the wisdom that Nunnally had always been able to see without eyes.

Though his face was perfectly devoid of all expression, though not even the slightest twitch gave him away...the pale hand clutched in my own trembled violently with all the emotion he dared not show, convulsing in my tight grip like a dying bird.

Finally... _finally_...I understood what C.C. had tried to tell me all along.

"Lelou-"

"For the sake of Zero Requiem," he intoned lowly, his voice pitched only for my ears, as his hand shook uncontrollably in my own. I clenched my teeth, fighting back the unexpected tears, and knelt at my king's feet.

"Yes, Your Majesty," I whispered, filled with all the loyalty I'd only ever pretended before. Gently, I kissed his quavering hand, and then pressed it to my forehead - willing even a fraction of his endless strength to pass on to me.

Because...now that I knew the truth, now that I knew he was still that impossibly kind boy from my childhood (and, perhaps, always had been, buried beneath all the lies and the manipulation and that horribly broken laughter)...how could I _possibly_ kill him, at the end of everything?

"You are my knight, Suzaku, and my sword. You will slash away my enemies, my weaknesses...and all of my sins."

What else could I say?

"...yes, Your Majesty."

* * *

Lelouch was kinder after that day. No longer able to fool me with his mask of cruelty and arrogant disdain, he finally began to show me his true self when we were alone (or with C.C.). The remaining weeks we spent together after that were...peaceful, much like the times we'd shared in the heat of the Japanese summer years before. He refrained from intentionally taunting me, and so I had no more reason to go for his proverbial throat.

And, every night when his screams of horror and regret and terrible despair began anew, I would go to his room and lie at my king's side. The moment my hands touched his, that horrible screaming would gently fade away.

And when his eyes opened in the morning, I would smile at him...offering the only kindness that a demon Emperor could receive for the rest of his days.

* * *

The night before our fated day, I made one last effort to change his mind.

And when I took that mask from his hand, the one I'd hated for so long - he asked me, gently, if I thought that wishes were like Geass.

But as his blood ran over my sword and stained Zero's purple garments -

As his bloody hand tenderly caressed my mask like a lover -

As he softly whispered to me his last words like a confession of love -

As I watched his body tumble limply down that ramp -

As Nunnally's screams of despair overpowered the chant of my new name -

I thought instead that it was more like a poison...slowly eating away at everything that had ever mattered to anyone who came into contact with it.

Because if Geass could truly grant wishes, then it would have answered mine.

And Lelouch would never have had to die.


	6. Smiling

_"You used to captivate me by your resonating light_

_Now I'm bound by the life you left behind_

_Your face, it haunts my once pleasant dreams_

_Your voice, it chased away all the sanity in me_

_These wounds won't seem to heal,_

_This pain is just too real..._

_There's just too much that time cannot erase."_

_"My Immortal" by Evanescence_

* * *

Lelouch vi Britannia, the Demon Emperor who both destroyed and recreated the world, smiles in his eternal sleep.

It is a strange thing, to see him so still and silent. Ever since our meeting as children, Lelouch has never been a gentle sleeper. I have seen him laugh, speak, cry, thrash, and scream in his deepest sleep over the course of our time together. Not once had I ever seen him at peace...until now.

Seeing him like this, with the faintest smile at the corners of his lips, surrounded by marble roses in his gilded casket - is almost more than I can bear.

There is no funeral. No mourners, save for Nunnally and myself.

For who could mourn a demon king?

* * *

_"Zero! Zero! Zero! Zero!"_

_The crowd surged up onto the platform, releasing the members of the Order of the Black Knights from their chains. Some of them wept with joy or danced for the sheer release of their euphoria. I could only stare in mute horror, listening to Nunnally's endless screaming...trying desperately not to think about what I'd just done._

_"Get him!"_

_"Tear him apart!"_

_"Let's take revenge for our loved ones!"_

_Several people pounded towards where Nunnally wept over the body of her fallen brother, cries of outrage and hatred preceding their footsteps._

_I panicked._

_"Stop, all of you!"_

_The crowd froze at my -Zero's- words. Some of them looked confused; others began to look afraid, as though they feared the possibility of yet another demon leader taking Lelouch's place. I ran to Nunnally's side, sheathing my sword and throwing my arms wide in that silly, ridiculously dramatic gesture I'd always seen Lelouch perform._

_"Hasn't there been enough hatred?" I shouted. I could never achieve even a fraction of Lelouch's way with words, but I prayed that the ones I had would be enough. "Hasn't there been enough bloodshed? To defile the corpse of a man would make you just as vile as he was! Let us give him at least a burial, befitting a human being! Not because he deserves it, but because there has been enough despair in our world - let us work towards kindness, instead! Let us create a new world, where everyone is valued, where no one desires the power to enslave others!"_

_Cheers greeted me instantly, the resounding chant of my new name starting once again._

_It made me sick._

_They shouldn't be cheering for me. I didn't deserve this._

_I slowly turned to face the king I had slain, his sister still weeping over his prone and bloodied form. This close, I could see that he had somehow managed to...die, with a peaceful smile. I wondered if anyone else noticed._

_Looking at him, I felt...I didn't know how I felt. There were no words._

_"Princess Nunnally," I said softly, kneeling next to her in the slowly widening pool of blood. "We need to bury him...before someone decides to- to-"_

_I didn't know how to finish that sentence, but she seemed to understand. She slowly looked up at me, at her brother's murderer, her face contorted in unbearable agony. I'd never seen so many tears on a single person's face. The sight lanced through my heart like the sword I'd used to end his life._

_I had expected hatred, anguish, even relief...but, just like her brother, she surprised me in the most unexpected way._

_"I know," she whispered softly up at me, giving me the barest hint of a smile. "I understand."_

_I couldn't speak past the burning agony in my throat. Why did so many people show me kindness instead of the hatred I deserved? Why did so many people just accept me as I am, when I couldn't forgive myself for even the least of my innumerable sins?_

_I reached out with hands that shook, and gently bundled my fallen lover into my arms._

* * *

I had tried to find an embalmer, a priest - someone, _anyone_ , who might find enough goodness in their heart to help me bury him...but there was no one.

And so I carried his body across the city to the tomb he'd prepared months ago, and I laid him gently into the engraved casket he'd commissioned that had been waiting there for so many weeks. As I turned away to go back for Nunnally (because _she_ , at least, should be here at this pathetic excuse for a funeral), I saw Jeremiah at the entrance, with Nunnally safely in her wheelchair once more. He nodded solemnly to me, and then disappeared - preparing to flee to the Britannian countryside with Anya, as he'd confided in me only yesterday.

I wondered if Nunnally thought it odd that her brother's killer would go to such lengths to give him a proper burial.

I wondered if there was something I should say, in this moment, with her tear-streaked face fixed solely upon me.

I wondered if this nightmare would ever end.

(Please, _please_ , just let it end.)

"I know it's you. I saw, when I touched...his hand."

I'd seen a lot of strange, mystical things over the past two years. Geass. The World of C. Ragnarok. The Sword of Akasha. The Cogs of Fate.

But I still had no idea how Nunnally could understand so much, from just a single touch of her fingers.

"I...I..."

I didn't know what to say. I couldn't think past the horror of what I'd done...past the corpse lying next to me in its gilded box. It hurt to think. It hurt to breathe.

It hurt to _live_.

Nunnally seemed to understand anyway, in that gentle way of hers. She propelled her wheelchair forward to rest at my side, and slowly extended her fingers up to grasp my gloved hand...still covered in Lelouch's blood. We turned, together, to stare at the man we'd both loved so much.

"It's okay...to mourn him, Suzaku."

It was the sound of my name, I think, more than anything...that surprised the first few tears from my eyes. And then it was too late, and I couldn't stop it, and suddenly there was a torrent of a hundred things I'd never really let myself feel - because it wasn't allowed, because I was the Knight of Seven or the Knight of Zero or Zero himself. But now only the broken pieces of Suzaku Kururugi remained, and there was no Euphemia to put them back together, because Lelouch had taken her away the same way he'd stolen everything dear to me.

(Even himself.)

We cried together, on that day the rest of the world celebrated in the streets. I clutched her hand tightly and wept behind the mask as she clung to my cape and sobbed against me, and we mourned together for the man that no one else would.

For who could mourn a demon king?

* * *

When we returned from sealing the Emperor's tomb, people were still dancing and cheering in the streets. I wheeled Nunnally slowly through them, toward the palace that had been my cage for the two months after my "death," and I tried to ignore the praise that was flung toward me with every step. All of the major players in the chess game Lelouch had performed for so long were gathered now in his palace, waiting for us. For Zero.

"Nunnally..." Kallen greeted softly as we approached the entrance. I tried not to take comfort in the sight of her red eyes, but it warmed my heart to see that someone else was kind enough to mourn him.

"Kallen, what's going on?" Nunnally inquired, with all the dignity of her fallen brother. "Is there chaos, or is there still time to repair the UFN and reinstate all the leaders that my- the Emperor arrested?"

Kallen's eyes, which had been lingering on my mask, now dropped back to Nunnally. "Negotiations are already underway inside. Many people have voted for Ohgi to become Prime Minister, but there is still...well, no one is quite sure what to do about Britannia."

"I see. Lord Zero, will you please accompany me inside?"

On a different day, I might have smiled. Nunnally, for all her gentle kindness, still had a mind as sharp as her brother's - and had, essentially, rescued me from an interrogation by Kallen.

Though, from the way Kallen frowned at me with fresh tears glimmering on her lashes, I had a feeling she already knew exactly who I was.

* * *

That night, long after each country's government was reinstated, with Nunnally replacing Lelouch as the 100th Empress of the reformed Britannia (renamed in her first action as ruler), I wandered the halls I now knew by heart. My feet brought me eventually to the underground reservoir where all Britannians honor their dead, but I was surprised to see that it was not empty as I'd expected. In fact, several people were gathered at the side of the water.

There was nowhere to hide on such a wide, open staircase, but I needn't have worried - all of the people gathered below had their backs to me and none of them seemed to have heard my footsteps. I noted, with no small amount of surprise, that several elite members of the Black Knights stood together with the remnant of the shattered Ashford Student Council. I saw my old sensei Tohdoh next to my cousin Kaguya, along with familiar faces like Kallen, Rivalz, Milly, and Nina. I also noted Viletta standing at the new Prime Minister Ohgi's side, and next to them a man with spiky brown hair that I recalled only as being the loudmouth from today's earlier negotiations. Tamaki, perhaps?

For a moment, I wondered what all of these people could be doing down here. Surely so many members of the Black Knights weren't attempting a _Britannian_ custom?

But, apparently, they were.

Each of the people below cradled a brightly-colored candle in their hands as though it were a frail bird. Kallen slowly moved to each of them with a match, lighting every candle herself until she was the only one left. After lighting her own, she used her fingers to put out the match and then shoved it into one of her pockets.

For a long moment, everyone simply stood there in silence, staring at the water with its sea of glittering flames. And then, they each knelt at the side of the reservoir, and gently propelled their candles to join the others.

Each candle spelled out Lelouch's name.

* * *

_"Your Majesty."_

_Emperor Lelouch lifted his eyes from the marble chess set he was, apparently, playing a game with against himself, and fixed his violet eyes upon me. "Come now, Suzaku. We are alone - surely you can drop the formalities?"_

_"Lelouch, then. I...wanted to ask you something."_

_He hummed questioningly, but dropped his eyes back to the chess set, moving a black castle across the board to take the place of a white bishop. I watched him play against himself for several moments in silence, and then asked a completely different question from the one I'd intended._

_"Why do you always use your king as a weapon?"_

_His lips twitched. "If a king does not move himself, his subjects will not follow."_

_"That's what you tell everyone," I agreed. "But what is the real reason?"_

_(There was always a different reason, hidden behind his lies and half-truths.)_

_Lelouch's eyes darted back in my direction for a moment, before he closed them and smiled slightly. "Do you remember the first time I taught you how to play chess?"_

_I snorted. "You mean when I hit you over the head with my bokken and told you chess was stupid?"_

_Lelouch laughed outright, something I hadn't seen him do in weeks. "Yes, that would be the one."_

_"Alright, what about it?"_

_He smiled softly up at me. "Don't you remember what you said?"_

_I frowned. "That it was stupid and-"_

_"No. Before that."_

_I tried for several minutes, but couldn't recall anything noteworthy beyond whacking him over the head with my wooden sword._

_Lelouch's smile widened at my silence. "When I tried to explain to you that the object of the game was to corner your enemy's king while protecting your own king at all costs...you told me that it was the silliest thing you'd ever heard."_

_I stared at him, furrowing my eyebrows in confusion. "Yeah, and...?"_

_"And then you said that a kingdom's subjects shouldn't be required to protect their king. Instead, it should be the king that protects his people," Lelouch replied, and then he looked down at his chess set with a strange smile. He moved a white knight closer to his black king, and then-_

_"Checkmate."_

I wondered why I thought of that now.

Staring at the mirror in the room that had been assigned to me (temporarily, until the UFN solidified its new agreements and laws), I could almost forget who I was. It was...very strange, to look in a mirror and see Zero's mask, instead of green eyes set in a tanned face.

It was stranger still...to see those bloody trails left by his fingers.

To remember what I'd done.

...

...

...

I'd thrown it clear across the room before I even realized what I was doing.

It hit the wall with a resounding smack, and then fell heavily to the floor. I found myself regretting that I hadn't thrown it hard enough to shatter it.

"Already having a tantrum, are we?"

Whirling around in surprise, I caught sight of C.C. sitting on the bed, where previously there had been only empty air.

"How...when did you-"

"Oh, I've been here for quite some time, waiting for you."

Sometimes I wondered how Lelouch had endured her. "What do you want?"

"Ho? So cold," she purred in amusement, lounging against the pillows in her catlike way.

Normally, I would have reacted angrily (as usual), but this time, on this day...I felt only an overpowering weariness. I sighed heavily and scrubbed my face with rough fingers. "Why are you here, C.C.?"

She smiled impishly. "Why are we all-"

"C.C."

Her smile died away as swiftly as it had appeared, and the immortal gazed at me steadily, amber eyes glinting across the room like firelight.

"You tell me," she murmured softly, and then picked up the screen remote to push several buttons in quick succession.

Lelouch appeared on the screen, looking down at me.

My heart caught in my throat. "Le-"

"Suzaku," he began softly. "I hope C.C. is able to deliver this message to you. You are probably busy, with all the-"

I interrupted him, eyes caught by the oddly plain blue vest he wore over a commoner's white shirt. "What the _hell_ are you wearing?"

It was a familiar joke between us, ever since my moment of understanding in that first week after my "death." It never failed to get a rise out of him, pompous royalty that he was. (Lelouch would _always_ be royalty, even covered in dirt and chasing butterflies under a blistering Japanese sky.)

There was no reaction. Lelouch continued speaking...as though he hadn't heard me at all.

As though it were a recording.

My heart slowly sank.

"-you might hate me now for what I've made you do," he was still saying. "But I hope you will eventually forgive me, Suzaku."

I forgave you long before that sword pierced your chest.

"What is the point of this, Lelouch?" I asked softly, staring up at that screen and wishing with all my might that it was real. That _he_ was real.

Lelouch paused for a moment, gazing at the spot where my head would be if I moved two steps to the left. "I must admit, I am...at somewhat of a loss. I've never made a recording for someone whose answers I haven't already predicted."

I closed my eyes in pain as my suspicions were confirmed, and moved over to the bed C.C. currently occupied. I felt her eerie gaze on me as I sat down on the edge of the covers, but my eyes were focused solely on Lelouch. (As they always had been.)

"But...you've always been the one person I could never fully predict," he continued softly. "You have always surprised me at every turn, always doing the exact opposite of what I think you will."

He gave the room a gentle smile. "Maybe that's why I could never really let go of you."

I buried my face in my hands, an angry despair welling up from somewhere deep within me. C.C. shifted and, for a moment, I thought I felt her hand hovering just above my shoulder in a gesture of comfort. But then her weight shifted, and I felt her slide off the bed. I watched her tread silently, like a ghost, to the discarded mask I'd thrown only minutes before in my rage, and she gently reached down to cradle it in her hands like a newborn child.

"Suzaku," Lelouch spoke determinedly, reclaiming my attention. "You were...my first friend. My most loyal knight. Of all the people I have known, of all the things people demanded from me...you have only ever asked for just one thing."

I stared up at his serious violet eyes, and wished fleetingly that I could have given him my curse of life.

The former emperor smiled, somewhat ruefully. "You have only ever asked for my honesty."

Wrong. I asked for you to live, the night before I killed you.

"And so, Suzaku, my most faithful Knight of Zero, I would like to give you that one thing you have always desired."

"What, my death?" I laughed harshly, something ugly and vile boiling inside me. "Your life? Euphy's life? Sh-"

"I never killed Shirley," Lelouch blurted out in a rush, as though he were afraid he might start lying if he said it normally. I blinked, momentarily surprised that he'd answered my question before I even said it. He paused for a moment, and then looked down with sad eyes. "I would never have killed her. She was coming after me, to help or...something, I don't know. But...Rolo intercepted her. He said, afterwards...that she had been coming after me with a gun, but when I- when she saw me, in her last moments, she told me she'd wanted to help...that she loved me, and that she'd forgiven me. I..."

He swallowed thickly, and then continued with a hoarse voice. "I manipulated Rolo into caring for me. It...I think it may have worked a little...too well."

"Understatement of the year," I remarked flatly, thinking back to the times I'd caught Rolo staring at him with those glittering, enraptured eyes.

"I think I might have caused him to fall in love with me," Lelouch continued, unaware of my blatant sarcasm. "Or...to believe he was, at least. There were times- ...well, I digress. I think Rolo killed Shirley because he was jealous and possessive of me. He seemed...angry, every time someone got too close to me..."

He trailed off, eyes fixated on his linked fingers. After a length of silence, he sighed shakily.

"This is harder than I thought it would be," he whispered, as if to himself. "I've been lying for so long..."

I yearned to ask him questions, burned with the need to see him in front of me - more than just an image on a screen - smiling, laughing, breathing, _living_ -

But the man I'd buried would never breathe again.

"Suzaku. I never meant to do that to Euphy."

I inhaled sharply, eyes wide. "Wha-"

"I swear to you," he said earnestly, amethyst eyes gazing avidly at the spot he apparently thought I might be standing at. "I swear to you, Suzaku, on everything I have ever held dear...I didn't give that order to Euphy on purpose."

_No. Don't.....don't do this to me now._

"I told you once that I hadn't always needed contacts to hide my Geass. That day, at the SAZ...I was explaining my power to her, trying to convince her, when it...when it went out of control." His voice broke at the end, and I noticed his hands start to shake. "I was telling her stupid things. Things like...'if I told you to shoot me, you would. If I told you to shoot Suzaku, you would'..."

Lelouch closed his eyes, and a single tear rolled down his cheek as his expression twisted in agony. "...'If I told you to kill all the Japanese...you would.'"

Bile rose in my throat. All this time...all those lies...and he had...he-

"Suzaku," he whispered brokenly, opening his eyes and staring (somehow, by freak chance-) straight at me. "I have never, _ever_ , regretted anything...as much as I regret that day."

I thought of the self-loathing I'd seen in his eyes at the Kururugi shrine, of the simultaneously gentle and cruel king who'd checkmated himself...and I believed him.

"Turn it off," I croaked. C.C.'s hair swished softly as she turned to look at me.

"He's not done-"

"I don't care. Turn it off."

_I can't take this anymore._

She gazed at me intently, but did not move.

"Suzaku," the dead man on the screen continued. "I am so...so sorry."

"Sorry?" I snarled. "You're sorry? I _buried_ you today, and you tell me you're _sorry_?!"

C.C. blinked in surprise as I leapt off the bed and moved to the screen, shouting up at it as though he could hear me. "You son of a bitch! You made me hate you! You tricked me into thinking you were _so_ evil, and then you forced me to kill you because there was no other choice left!"

I pounded the wall below his face, wishing it were him. "You bastard! Come back! You were Zero, weren't you?! The man of miracles!? So come back! Come back right now!"

"Come back." I slid down the wall as the anger bled out of me, sobbing before I'd even realized there were tears on my face. "Come back..."

Only silence answered me.

And then-

"You asked me once," he began softly, gently. "Why I ordered you to live."

_Please, no. Please don't tell me why._

"The truth is, Suzaku...I just...I couldn't bear the thought of a world without you." Lelouch laughed quietly at himself. "I didn't want to lose you, even though I already had."

How unfair.

"... _Aishiteru_ , Suzaku. I will wait for you...in the next life."

How cruel of him...to say, in death, the one thing I'd always wished to hear when he was alive.

( _I love you._ )

I stared at the floor as I heard the screen switch off, and I wondered why the poison known as Geass had ever been born.

C.C.'s feet appeared in my line of vision, and she slowly knelt in front of me. I eyed the bloodstained mask in her hands.

"How do you endure it, C.C.?" I asked softly. "How do you bear losing...everyone, again and again?"

I looked up at her timeless gaze, and thought, perhaps, that I could finally understand her vast sorrow.

She smiled in her strange way. "You don't. You despair, and you live anyway."

C.C. stood slowly, leaving my new face on the carpet at her feet with its blood stains. For the first time, as she turned to leave, I noticed that she wore an old-fashioned skirt and blouse that looked vaguely Irish. At the door, she paused. "You know...it's strange."

"What is?" I asked, hollow and numb.

"That boy - Lelouch." As if we ever spoke of anyone else. "He broke every promise he ever made."

The immortal woman turned and smiled gently at me. "Except the ones he made to you."

I stared at the door as it closed behind her.

_"Suzaku...I'm going to crush Britannia!"_

_"We will always be friends, right?"_

I thought, also, of the words I'd spoken to him at the shrine where two children grew up in ways no one should ever have to. Of the promise he'd tried to make before Schneizel drove us apart.

_"If you're going to lie, then lie until the very end."_

_"End this war...in a way that the world gains true peace and everyone can live peacefully again."_

He truly had kept every single promise.

Except one.

_"We will always be together...right?"_

_"Always, Suzaku. Always."_


	7. Interlude

But it wasn't until decades later, when I looked across the New Zealand airport and saw golden eyes framed by familiar green hair, set in a face riddled with age lines...that I realized the true meaning of Lelouch's final promise to me.

_"Aishiteru, Suzaku. I will wait for you...in the next life."_

Not his next life.

_**Mine**. _

 

 

"Son of a-"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **....the end?**


	8. Living

_"What is this overflowing emotion_

_That can cross over time and capture me?_

_Where now are those people to whom_

_Gentleness suits the corners of their eyes?"_

_"Continued Story" by Kuroishi Hitomi_

* * *

I stalked over to her immediately before she could attempt to escape, ignoring the alarmed cries of "Lord Zero!" and "Sir?" emanating from behind me. The woman once known as C.C. didn't turn to run, but merely stood there and cocked her head slightly, with that same endlessly amused expression on her face I'd seen a hundred times before.

"It's been a while, boy," she greeted me with that odd smile of hers that would never change. Ignoring her words entirely, I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her forcefully away from the crowded airport food stations (because, of course, I'd found her at a pizza restaurant). C.C. refrained from protesting in any way, merely jogging along to keep up with my long strides as I pulled her towards the VIP lounge arranged for "Lord Zero's" private use.

For once, I was actually glad of the fame attached to being Zero.

Disregarding the fact that she was basically an old woman now in body as well as mind, I shoved her unceremoniously into the room and then locked the door behind us. When the airport had arranged for my use of the VIP lounges in preparation for the UFN meeting that would soon be taking place, I'd made certain to ask for one without windows or cameras - and, naturally, they'd complied...because no one refused the man who'd "saved" the world.

"My, my," the once-immortal woman drawled, raising an eyebrow at me. "You've certainly become more violent since I saw you last...Lord Zero."

I'd forgotten how much sarcasm she could deliver with that practiced, cheerful tone.

"What the hell is going on?" I demanded, staring at her face and trying to convince myself that I wasn't dreaming. "You're...you're..."

"Old?" she supplied helpfully, the corners of her lips turning up and creating even more aged wrinkles in her skin. Her outward appearance looked to be about 50 or so, despite my knowledge that she was more than likely closer to 450 (and maybe even more than that). "I've always been old, boy."

"Yes, but now you're actually-" I stopped myself in the middle of my sentence as I realized the true implications of her age. "Fuck."

C.C. hummed agreeably, before reaching up and deftly pressing the hidden button on the side of the mask which would collapse its backing. Too stunned by my new knowledge, I could only stare openly at her as she removed the mask from my face.

She froze, her unnatural golden eyes widening at the sight of me.

"What, did you forget what I look like?" I snapped, renewed rage bubbling up from within me as I suddenly understood _everything_ . That _bastard_ -

In the silence as she stared at me, mouth parted in a little "o" of surprise, my heart pounded against my chest like an echoing, aching refrain.

( _He's alive, he's alive, he's alive, alivealivealivealive_ )

"Suzaku..." C.C. whispered in horror, voice no louder than a breath. "Why aren't you aging?"

* * *

_After that horrifying day that would forever be etched into our nightmares, Nunnally had taken on her role of 100th Empress to the shattered Britannian empire with all the determination and stubbornness of a thousand Knightmare devicers. Bereft of a home, an identity, and a purpose, "Zero" had followed her to Britannia after the disbandment of the Black Knights. Out of respect for the man who'd slain the tyrant that enslaved the world, the UFN had graciously given me immunity and created a law for the sole purpose of protecting whatever identity lay behind the mask._

_And every night, beneath the rebuilt palace of Pendragon, we lit two candles for the loved ones we'd lost._

_We never spoke during this odd ritual of ours. We simply remembered, and mourned._

_And one day, many years after the Requiem we never spoke of (save for that one horrible day where I told her everything), Nunnally stared at me over her nightly cup of tea with a thoughtful expression._

_"Suzaku..." she began hesitantly, her eyebrows knitting together in apprehension at voicing her own question. "Do you ever...look in a mirror?"_

_I gave her a bewildered smile. "Of course I do."_

_Her violet eyes (so much like his) glittered at me intently. "Without...your mask?"_

_I paused with my mouth open, blinked, and then closed it again. How could I tell her that I hadn't wanted to see my own face after what I'd done? Suzaku Kururugi was dead. Lelouch Lamperouge was dead. Only Zero remained. Zero emotion, zero identity, zero ties to the world I was supposed to protect._

_(Except for that one little word in the back of my mind, an echo forcing my deadened heart to beat.)_

_"You haven't, have you?" she inquired softly, her face filled with gentle understanding._

_I frowned irritably. "Why does it even matter?"_

_She stared at me for a while, and then smiled uncertainly. "Because...you look the same."_

_"Well, of course I do. I-"_

_"No, Suzaku." Her eyes filled with something like fear. "You look...the same. Exactly...the same."_

_I inhaled sharply, heartbeat speeding up even as I tried my hardest not to understand what she meant. My eyes focused on her face, taking in all the little details that I didn't normally notice until I compared her with my memories. A slight crinkle at the corner of lips that smiled often- an old grief filling eyes which had once shined with innocence and purity- a face filled out with womanly charm and none of the baby fat she'd once possessed-_

_All small, simple signs of aging._

_With my heart pulsing in my ears, I stood and walked over to the large mirror over her dresser._

_A boyish, unchanged face reflected back at me...where I should have seen a 34-year old man._

_My mouth formed the word as it echoed in my head._

_" **Live**." _

_Wide green eyes stared back at me, surrounded with an ever so slight tint of red._

* * *

"Because he told me to live," I said quietly, gazing back at the woman whose body had finally begun to show a fraction of her immense age. I had never before seen C.C. look so surprised - or, even, surprised at all. She had never seemed stunned by anything, as though in her infinite wisdom she had already predicted the next hundred years and beyond. Even when she'd stumbled upon the sight of an emperor pinned against his throne in a very inappropriate manner by his very out-of-line knight, she had only huffed and said, _"Finally!"_ before stalking away.

C.C. blinked a few times in succession, the shock bleeding slowly out of her eyes and swiftly being replaced by a calculating intelligence much like her (former?) contractor.

"I've never seen a Geass like this," she whispered in fascination, staring up at me openly. "To actually give an order that could mutate into its own Code...that boy is truly something."

I couldn't help but notice her use of the present tense. "So he is alive, then?"

She smirked. "Is who alive?"

Damn her and her word games. "Lelouch, obviously."

"Oh, no. Lelouch is very much dead."

"Wh-What?" I stammered, brain reeling. How could she be old if...but then, what-?

"L.L., however..." she trailed off, her smirk widening into an expression I'd once seen on Arthur's face after he'd given me a particularly nasty bite.

I sighed in weary annoyance. "Of course."

We lapsed into a momentary silence, each of us immersed in old memories. The ever-present grief I spent every day fighting with just to get out of bed in the morning was slowly reforming into a hollow ache, like a strange hole left inside of me with his shape.

"Why didn't he tell me, C.C.?" spilled out of my mouth before I could stop it.

She smiled at me in a kind, gentle sort of way I'd never before seen on her formerly tragic face. "I think, perhaps, that is something only _he_ can answer."

I stared at her for a moment, overcome with an irrational urge to hug this strange old woman, who had both exasperated and yet comforted me many times before.

"Where is he?"

Her golden eyes sparkled as she smiled at me.

* * *

This time, it was him who waited at the top of these stairs.

I stared up at them, heart thudding painfully against my chest. The stone steps were overgrown now, strewn with moss and years of fallen leaves never swept away. I wondered, suddenly, if this was what it must have been like for C.C. - to come across places you once knew and loved, only to find them abandoned and desiccated by time. She had smiled when she bid me a final farewell, telling me only that he would be at the Kururugi Shrine on the anniversary of our Requiem.

But when I reached the top of the stairs...no one was there.

I laughed quietly at myself in derision. Of course he wouldn't come - why would he show up now, after taking so much care to hide his immortality even from me, his ever-present Knight?

An old anger I hadn't felt in decades was slowly churning inside me.

_How dare you._

A soft scuffling noise reached my ears, emanating from the trees to my right. Curious, I followed the ghost of my own footsteps from years past and headed for the old storehouse where Lelouch and Nunnally had spent a quiet year before the war that destroyed Japan.

I sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of him.

Almost, _almost_ , I hadn't quite believed C.C. - even with the evidence of her aged body and her words confirming his survival. And yet, there he was - slender frame and long, unkempt hair unchanged despite the many years since I'd last seen him (unmoving and expressionless inside a gilded coffin), standing and silently regarding the tiny storehouse he'd once called home.

He gave an impatient sigh at the sound of my footsteps, and began to turn. "You're late, witch. How long did you expect to keep me wait-"

Lelouch's eyes flew wide at the sight of me standing at the edge of the trees in full Zero regalia, a familiar choking noise cutting off the end of his sentence. We stared at each other silently, endlessly, until-

"Damn that witch," he cursed, averting his eyes and scowling. "I told her not to..."

"Not to what?" I inquired coolly. "Not to tell your friend and murderer that you had, actually, gotten up and walked away? Not to tell your shattered sister that the man she mourned every second of every day was actually frolicking through the countryside, laughing at his own genius?"

Lelouch regarded me silently with that blank look I hadn't seen in years (but would never forget).

"I should hate you, you know," I casually informed him.

"Yes, you should," he agreed quietly.

We stared at each other for several moments - me, behind the mask that he'd created so long ago, and him...with the beginnings of that same tragic expression I'd seen on C.C.'s face every day. I wondered then if all immortals eventually looked like that, with that despairing, haunting gaze of someone who could not die no matter how much they wished it. I wondered if I might someday share that horrible expression.

_No...this is wrong._

He shouldn't look like that. The man who'd sacrificed literally _everything_ to give peace to each human on this earth should not have that terrible look of quiet despair. He should be...flighty, arrogant, triumphant, full of himself - the way he'd always pretended to be when wearing the mask of Zero or the mask of the Demon Emperor. He'd tricked the world into peace, after all.

And then, I understood.

_"You will slash away my enemies, my weaknesses...and all of my sins."_

_"This is also a punishment for you."_

_"I have never, ever, regretted anything...as much as I regret that day."_

Zero Requiem was not the end of his atonement.

It was the beginning.

And as I realized that, all of my anger simply drained out of me as if it had never been. Lelouch hadn't hidden his survival from Nunnally or myself out of spite, or arrogance, or amusement, or any of the other innumerably horrible things I'd originally imagined. (How many times had I thought the worst of him, only to discover that I was so very, very wrong?) He had isolated himself on purpose - cutting away anything and everything he'd ever cared about, everyone he held dear, as his own personal punishment for all the atrocities he'd committed and couldn't forgive himself for.

Perhaps we are more alike than I had ever before considered.

Laughing quietly at myself and at him, I bowed my head and reached up a hand to remove the mask that had always separated us from the beginning. He made an aborted, jerking motion with his arm, as though to stop me from revealing my identity even in this deserted place.

"There is no one here to see," I assured him gently. "Just two people who shouldn't be alive."

Slowly, I raised my head back up to look at the man I thought I'd killed forever.

He hissed and recoiled backward at the sight of my face as though I'd punched him, staring at me with wide eyes in much the same way C.C. had, mouth dropping open in absolute horror. Amethyst eyes fixed on my face, drinking in the sight of my features as though he'd never seen them before.

And then his expression crumpled.

"Oh, Suzaku..." he whispered after several minutes. "...what have I done to you?"

I smiled ruefully. "Does the word 'live' ring any bells?"

His features twisted in agony, and he closed his eyes as though the sight of me were unbearable.

Gently, ever so slowly, I began to walk towards him - as careful as if I were approaching a cornered, feral animal. "It's okay, Lelouch."

"Don't call me that," he snapped, opening his eyes to glare at me. As soon as his eyes found my unchanged face, however, sadness filled them once again and he looked away. Softly, he spoke again in a whisper: "Don't call me that..."

"It's your name," I replied, moving ever closer. "I'm not going to call you L.L."

Lelouch raised his eyes to look at me once more, and this time they remained. "Suzaku, I-"

"Do you remember the last words you said to me?" I interrupted, coming to a stop now that I stood directly in front of him. The mask dangling from my fingers dropped to the ground with a clatter, and his eyes followed its progress.

"That you would..." he began softly, "...sacrifice your happiness for-"

"I think we both know that wasn't a recording, Lelouch."

He froze for a split second, eyes darting back to my face - and then he chuckled lightly, shaking his head at me. "You always see through me in the end, don't you?"

"Of course. We're friends, aren't we?"

The smile died away from his face, and he eyed me seriously for several moments.

"No..." Lelouch murmured slowly. "I think we're rather past that, don't you...Suzaku?"

I leaned forward gently, until our foreheads touched and I could feel his breath on my face. The joy borne from the knowledge of his life threatened to explode inside of me. "Do you remember...what you said to me?"

Lelouch's eyes softened. "That I would wait for you..."

"In the next life," I finished, and then I smiled at him. "Say, Lelouch...don't you think we've punished ourselves enough for one lifetime?"

His eyebrows furrowed in that familiar way, and he opened his mouth to answer me - but I was kissing him before he could say the words.

And, perhaps we didn't live happily ever after...

...but we _lived_.

**The End.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for coming along on this ride.
> 
> For those of you that finally found this story again after I deleted it so many years ago, I hope this has brought you joy and nostalgia.


End file.
